fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
There are apologies and then there are apologies. Some are spoken in anger, before the true cool down has taken place. “Well, I said I’m sorry!” Reflection had yet to take place. The words ring hollow. A favorite among politicos, actors, and other public figures is the now-famous Non-Apology Apology. The typical NAA takes the…
“The Passion Flower series, Mr. Gale,” he said after a long sip of brandy, “you asked what was the inspiration.” “Yes.” “It was my pathetic attempt at career suicide. I wanted to destroy everything I had built up. I wanted the world to write me off and leave me the fuck alone. But it didn’t…
April 15, 2012 was an auspicious day in North Korea. It saw the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of the country’s founder Kim Il-sung. North Korea is known for much spectacle and pomp and circumstance, so of course an event like this meant pulling out all the stops. Planning for this date actually began…
(Editor’s note (4/11/2012): A link was added to this piece, in the first sentence, to a CBS News article which quotes Mr. Zimmerman’s now ex-attorney, Craig Sonner, verifying that The Real George Zimmerman website does in fact belong to George Zimmerman. It is on this basis that the gar spot accepts the veracity of the…
We stood in front of a shelf marked 1953. A gap sat in the middle of otherwise tightly packed volumes. He began stroking the dust from the empty space. Again, it felt as if he were stroking my skin. This time I let myself experience it, for a little while. “Where are those volumes?” I…
During the Prop. 8 campaign four years ago, I received a mailer from the Yes on 8 folks which featured black religious figures on one side and then-presidential candidate Barack Obama on the other. It contained quotes like these: “Marriage is something that is sacred and worth defending as an institution of one man and…
Light, airy, and meticulously clean, attributes that well describe Mr. Horton’s apartment. His closet embodied the exact opposite. As we entered, he reached up and pulled a cord. A single bulb, brown with dust, hung on a thick wooly wire. The light revealed a cavern, cramped, long, and narrow with a pale wall grimed by…
March 3, 1991. Rodney King led officers on a high speed chase that ended in Simi Valley, California. When he finally surrendered, police took him out of the car, tasered him, and, as the now infamous video shows, kicked and beat him repeatedly as he laid on the ground. The officers claimed he resisted arrest…
“Listen, why are you here?” Startled, I looked up from my notepad. “The lifetime achievement award, Mr. Horton. My magazine wanted an interview.” “No! Why did they send you?” I had no immediate response. “You’re awfully young, you know that? How the hell do you even know who I am? What work of mine have…
Dr. Demento, every single Sunday, KMET radio…yeah! Back in the day, Angelenos heard four hours of the good Doctor, from 6-10 Sunday evenings. I played it while cleaning the kitchen, scraping roly poly fish heads into the garbage under a soundtrack of Weird Al Yankovic, George Carlin’s “Ice Box Man,” Cheech & Chong’s “Sister Mary…
